


sense of home

by vowelinthug



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Eels, M/M, a bottle of scotch, roadtrip games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24357769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vowelinthug/pseuds/vowelinthug
Summary: Martin smells.__post 159 cabin fic. also post 159 traveling to cabin fic.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 35
Kudos: 230





	sense of home

**Author's Note:**

> Martin Blackwood and the Archivist playing games and getting drunk because this is a fun podcast where only fun things happen and nothing bad ever happens

* * *

Martin still smells the sea on his skin.

He shouldn’t. It’s unlikely there had even been a beach at all, just the memory of one. And it’s been awhile since he was there anyway, wrapped up in the pale, static, heavy fog, alone and aching with it. Awhile — though he’s not really sure how long it’s been. Jon got them out of the Lonely, he knows. Then out of the Institute, past the blood and the mess and the screams, a state in which Martin had definitely not left it in.

It took him too long to feel anything other than Jon’s hand in his, letting him take the lead. Which, given Jon’s history, might not be the wisest course to ensure their safety, but Martin needed a healthy minute before he was aware again of the ground beneath his feet. It might have been Peter Lukas’s influence, or just regular run of the mill shock, but either way he didn’t feel entirely like himself until some stranger bumped into him on the street, and Martin and the man had both immediately muttered, “Oh, excuse me, terribly sorry,” and suddenly, he was back. Back, and on a busy street with Jon’s hand in his, while Jon stood thinking of their next move.

No, not thinking. Seeing their next move. Knowing it. So Martin had crowded in a little closer, to make sure to stay in Jon’s field of vision, until Jon blinked and said, “We’re going to Scotland. I need to find a phone.”

So now — it’s been awhile, he knows that. A new day, a clean jumper, a crowded train station or two and a train in between, city smog and fried station foods and stale, recirculated air units, but Martin still smells the sea on himself, on his skin, in his hair. A fresh, briney scent that fills him with a feeling that isn’t exactly nostalgia, but something like it. Yearning for the past he could never get back to. A very specific kind of loneliness, Martin knows. He doesn’t want to be back there. He doesn’t. It just smells like he does.

They’re in a train station outside of Manchester, needing to transfer to wherever Jon is taking them. Martin doesn’t know if there just wasn’t a direct route available, or if he’s deliberately trying to confuse whatever might be hunting them _now._ They’ll be here for another hour or so, and it’s the longest they’ve both been still and conscious together since — well, at least before Jon’s coma. They’ve been bouncing the same questions back and forth to each other the entire time: _\- What’s our next move? - No idea. - How are you feeling? - I honestly don’t know. - Are you hungry? - Probably. - Do you have your ticket? - No, you’re holding both. - What are we going to do? - Whatever we need to, I guess. - Are you with me? - Yes. Of course. Yes._

The long wooden bench they’re planted on is empty, facing away from the timetables. Martin supposes Jon will know when their train arrives. The station isn’t very busy, but Martin is at least sort of aware that it’s morning, and he can feel that particular energy of a place right before it’s about to get very busy. Calm, but prepared. Jon is beside him, maybe closer than he needs to be, given that there’s no one else on their bench, but Martin hardly minds. Jon’s frowning at a newspaper he found on the seat, and he must just be using anything to distract himself from their current situation, because when Martin had first glanced over to look, he’d seen it was a Sports section.

Martin’s trying very hard not to fall asleep. Perhaps he’s still in shock, but it feels like he hasn’t slept properly since Jon was in hospital. Exhaustion pulls at him like a persistent wave, gently but firmly trying to tug him under. He wonders if Jon will let him rest his head on his shoulder. It’s not even his eyelids that feel heavy, but his _eyes_ , the dark shapes of people blurring too closely in front of him as they walk by, making him feel a little seasick. Maybe he needs more tea.

“Huh,” says Jon. “That was funny.”

Martin blinks down at him, trying to straighten up. Jon is looking away, not at his paper, but at the retreating back of a man who looks like he might be homeless. “What was?”

“That man only asked me for change, not you,” Jon says. “”Normally, I’m the least approachable one.”

Martin is well aware that this is the general consensus, but it’s never one he’s particularly understood. He’s never been able to _not_ approach Jon.

He watches the homeless man wander up to a couple waiting on a nearby bench. Martin always carries extra change on him to give out to those who might need it.

“Oh,” he says, realizing. “He probably didn’t see me.”

Jon turns to him, frowning like Martin is the results of yesterday's Old Redcliffians - Ding Crusaders match and he has no idea what sport they play. He must know it’s _something_ , not just Martin’s usual self-deprecation, because he asks, “What does that mean?”

He doesn’t _compel_ Martin to answer, except in the way that Martin is hardwired to do anything Jon asks him, as he has been for almost as long as they’ve known each other. “Oh,” he says again. “It’s just this. Lonely. Thing. Where I just, I guess, slip out of sight for people. It’s only happened a couple times…. I think.”

Jon, if anything, looks even more confused. “But I could see you fine.”

“Well, yeah. What _don’t_ you see.” And then, because Jon _pouts_ at him, he adds, “I like that you can see me.”

He doesn’t mean for it to carry that much weight, but it does. And Jon hears it. Sees it. Just, knows it. Martin would be just fine to slip out of everyone’s sight forever, as long as Jon could still see him. Because Jon saw all of him, couldn’t help but see all of him, and still, Jon saved him. The others didn’t like to be close to Jon because of what — what he can do, and at first Martin felt mostly the same. But Martin finds he wants to bask in it now. It’ll probably fade eventually, and he’ll go back to wanting his secrets staying secret unless freely offered up, but for right now, it feels like it’s the only thing keeping him together. Jon sees him, and he’s _here_. If no one else ever acknowledged Martin again, it would be enough.

Jon sees him, which means he sees all that in Martin’s words, and he looks away. Though not unhappily, Martin recognizes. Just a bit flustered, in a way that makes Martin smile.

Then Jon sighs, tossing the old paper back on the seat beside him. “What are we going to _do_ , Martin?”

It occurs to Martin, suddenly, that you would never catch _Elias_ asking that. Because Elias would already just know the answer. The problem with the enemy being on the same side, or whatever, is that they have no real advantage. Elias can more or less do the same things Jon can do, only better and with apparently centuries of practice. Jon has to get better, stronger, if they want to survive this.

But that’s the kind of nonsense line Elias and Peter had been using on them both for ages now, and even though it’s right ( _obviously_ it’s right, it’s not like they’re going to survive by getting _worse_ at things, it’s not that wise of an insight), Martin doesn’t want to suggest it like that.

He looks away from Jon, over the train station, feeling like a disappointment. He doesn’t know if it’s that feeling, or the tired parents trying to corral their child away from pasties cart a few meters away, but Martin suddenly thinks of his mother. Before his father left, before she came to hate him, Martin had still been acutely aware that she’d found him… exhausting to deal with. He’d always try to overcompensate for that, but he only ever made it worse. But this was before his father left, when his mother still tried her best to handle him.

“Let’s play a game,” Martin says.

_God,_ Martin thinks helplessly when he looks back at Jon staring at him. His wide, confused eyes only emphasize the shadows under them, the fluorescent lighting in the station highlighting all his scars and strands of premature gray hair, his sharp cheekbones and chapped lips. He’s wearing clean clothes, but they’re already rumpled and slept in. He’s looking at Martin like he used to, like Martin’s an idiot. _He’s so cute. How does no one else see how_ cute _he is?_

“The way I see it,” Martin soldiers on, trying for some of the authority he’d somehow garnered by being Peter’s assistant and therefore responsible for basically the entire Institute for a little while. “We have one real asset here. Your…” He taps the center of his forehead for lack of a better word. “But you’re not… well, you’re not very good at it. At controlling it.”

“Yes,” says Jon drily, “I believe Basira once called me a _trauma vampire_.”

“Right. Well. Maybe you just need to practice a bit. On people. Like, these people.” He quickly adds, at Jon’s spluttering, “From a distance! I’ve seen you just, just know like, _normal, un-traumatic_ things about people. Like the stuff that just passes through their heads, or little details that don’t really matter much to anything. But you always seem to... startle yourself when it happens. You don’t mean to do it. Maybe you could try to….try,” he finishes lamely.

Jon stares at him for so long Martin thinks he might be trying to see into _him_. Then he says, “Martin, you want me to invade people’s privacy. As a game _._ ”

Martin shrugs. “Look, it doesn’t seem to be — going anywhere, right? You might as well get better at it, so we can maybe use it for _some_ good. And maybe if you get better at it, it’ll help with the whole, _compulsively forcing people to relive horrific experiences for a good meal_ thing. Just try to see stuff that’s on the surface. That’s not so bad. It’s like reading people’s phones over their shoulder on the Tube.”

“That’s — that’s — a _gross_ invasion of privacy.”

“Oh, we’ve all done it. When it’s crowded, you can’t help it!”

“We all have _not_ , Mister-six-foot- _whatever_ —”

“C’mon. We’ve got time. Pick someone out, tell me what they had for dinner last night, and I’ll try to guess who it could be.”

Jon gapes at him. “You want to play _I Spy_ ,” he says, “with _the Beholding_.”

Well, it sounds stupid when phrased like that. “Or I could pick up a magazine or something.” He points to the nearby stand, with issues of _The Sun_ piled on almost every rack.

“Christ, no,” Jon says immediately. He leans back against the bench, more of him pressed against Martin now as he surveys the other commuters. He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, “Fine. But if I accidentally traumatize someone, or see something that’ll traumatize _me_ , it’s your fault.”

“Of course.”

“Fine,” Jon says again, folding his arms petulantly. “I spy with my evil, omniscient, Eldritch _Eye…_ ”

Martin watches him closely as Jon scans the station. Partly because he wants to ensure that as Jon travels deeper down this road, there aren’t any outward signs of his allegiance to the Ceaseless Watcher. He’s never seen one before, but mostly he’d seen Jon do something like this at the Institute, which casts its own strangely colored hue, if you know to look for it. There’d never been any signs in Elias, but then, there wouldn’t be. Not in that body. But Peter always had this faded look to him, as though constantly standing in a thick fog. And Daisy — back when the Hunt fully had her, her teeth had always looked a little… longer than they should have. Her lips, just a little too red. There are always signs, but most people don’t know what they’re looking at.

And Martin also watches Jon because he likes to. Because he knows he’s allowed, now.

“Someone here is thinking about having their first drink in ten years,” Jon says finally, his gaze somehow both sharp and far-away. “It’s been ten long years, but he always th _inks about having a drink, on the anniversary of this night. The thought idly creeps into his mind, when the outside world reaches this particular level of quiet. He’ll think about that first heated sip, then the next, and then he’ll be back on that slick, dark, slick road on a night ten years ago. The whisky churning through his system, but he’s been a drinker all his life, and it was hardly his first night behind the wheel like this. He’d just had a fight with his girlfriend_ again _, one fight in so many that to this day, he can’t remember what it was about. The rain pounding on his windshield seemed to burn the alcohol from him, leaving him with an empty, impotent rage. The road was badly lit but familiar enough, one he’d traveled hundreds of times, winding from the pub to his house through spindling trees and creeping shrubs, dark except for the crackle of lightning, stalking closer and closer like the legs of a giant insect. There was nothing for that old man to hide behind, nothing for him to jump out of, and it wasn’t where the road curved for him to not_ see _the old man. But then the old man shot out onto the road, head ducked to protect against the rain, eager to just get home to some dryness and warmth, and for no particular reason except perhaps the rage inside he had no good place for, he found himself pressing down on the gas pedal, his hands twitching the wheels directly towards the old m—”_

Martin coughs.

“ _\--the silhouette of the hunched figure against the rain and the white headli—_ what? Oh. Ah.” Jon blinks, ducking his chin onto his chest. “Hm.”

“It’s fine.”

“Sorry. Ugh.”

“You started out alright.”

_“Sorry._ ”

“Really, it’s fine,” Martin assures him, gently patting his knee. “Just ease off a bit. Try again.”

Jon takes a deep breath, shifting against Martin’s side. He uses Martin’s shoulder to scratch his chin, arms still folded. He doesn’t protest against the hand Martin has left on his knee. “Okay. I spy with my evil, omniscient, Eldritch Eye…” He glances around again, taking a longer moment, “someone having an affair with his wife’s best friend.”

Martin waits for more horror to come out, but that seems to be it. “Oh! That’s… juicy.” It’s terrible, of course, but at this point it’s basically benign.

He looks out at the people milling about, waiting or running for trains. It’s busier now than when they’d first sat down. He trusts Jon not to have picked someone who was clearly on their way out the room, and looks at the people who, like them, have set up camp on one of the many benches and chairs, or leaning against walls and pillars, lost in their own worlds. He imagines the cheating spouse would be someone of a particular age — old enough to be tired of the marriage, but young enough to be completely stupid by cheating with the best friend.

His eyes stop on a couple, sitting a little ways off. They’re both early forties, dressed for work at jobs that’ll likely pay more than Martin will ever make. She’s got a magazine, but she keeps trying to start a conversation with the man she’s with about something she’s reading, flipping the pages and pointing at whatever is there, turning it so he can see it better. But the man is busy texting on his phone, not paying attention at all to what she’s saying.

It’s possibly not a fair snapshot of a relationship, but Martin can see the loneliness clinging to the woman, even as she goes back to her magazine, seemingly unbothered by his lack of attention. It’s in the edges of her eyes, the way they drift over the pages listlessly, like she’s rethinking everything she just said out loud. Perhaps she doesn’t even realize how lonely she is, but Martin thinks she will, soon. The man, for all his inattention, doesn’t seem smart enough to hide his emotions. He looks bored and antsy as he types furiously, eager to be anywhere else.

“Him,” Martin says, nodding his head as delicately as he can towards them. “The guy wearing that ugly blue tie. He looks dumb enough to do something like that.”

“That’s catty,” says Jon, but he’s smiling. “And correct. How did you guess?”

Martin shrugs. “Just a feeling.”

“Well, the best friend’s given him chlamydia, though he doesn’t know it yet,” he says, donning a dramatic stage-whisper. “So it’s all going to get very nasty soon.”

Jon never, ever gossiped at the Institute. They’d used to try and drag him into it, even before he’d been promoted, and he never had a taste for it. Seemed to look down on all of them for trying to discuss which librarian might be sleeping with which researcher at any given moment, or who got so drunk at the office Christmas party that they’d puked in a filing cabinet, but had the sense to aim for the X-Z drawer, which was relatively empty.

So, understandably, Martin is delighted to hear about the man’s chlamydia. “Go on. That was good.”

“Okay,” says Jon, looking happy to oblige him. “I spy with my evil, omniscient, Eldritch Eye…. someone who’s been stealing from the register at work.”

They manage to kill almost an hour this way. Martin is surprisingly good at intuiting musical tastes, who was currently wearing mismatched socks, and criminal backgrounds, and he goes fifty-fifty on political leanings, unique job histories, and whose phones are already charged below fifty percent at nine in the morning. Jon’ll give him an easy one like, who here owns seven cats, and then throw him an impossible curveball like, whose dentist was once a background character in two episodes of _EastEnders._ Where Martin really struggles is picking out those with specific sexual fetishes, but he chooses to blame that on the distraction of watching Jon stutter and gesture while trying to describe them. They don’t accidentally stumble on anyone else marked by an entity, and Martin keeps a close eye, pun unintended, on how Jow fares the whole time. He’s not exactly sure what he’s looking for, though. Some of the same intense smugness of knowing that clings to Elias, maybe? A glimmer of inhumane pleasure testing the bounds of his power?

Martin doesn’t see any of that in Jon. He just sees the same pleased tiredness, and the way his eyes crinkle when he gets Martin to laugh.

“ _Really?_ ” Martin asks, trying to casually stare at the man wearing undergarments not made for his identifying gender, currently buying a newspaper on the other side of the station. “I suppose it’s a good way to hide lines under that suit.”

“Ah — yes.” Jon still looks flustered, his hands now resting in his lap. His right brushes the side of Martin’s thigh, the healed burns on his palm and fingers shining in the station’s bad lighting. Martin aches with his whole heart looking at them, wondering how long they took to heal, wondering why he carries the scars at all, wondering if they’re as smooth as they look. He so desperately wants to hold Jon’s hand, but he’s not sure how to without being relentlessly chased by horrors.

_You’re not alone_ , he tells himself over and over. _You’re not lonely, you’re not alone, you’re not lonely_ , and places his hand on top of Jon’s.

Immediately, he knows it’s a mistake. He should have waited until one of them was talking again, so they wouldn’t just be sitting here in silence with only their touching hands between them. Jon’s hand is surprisingly cool, or maybe Martin’s is just too, too warm.

Jon clears his throat, his fingers twitching, but not in a way that means he wants Martin’s hand to move. After a moment, so abrupt it almost makes Martin jump, he says, “Someone here wants to kiss you.”

“What? Seriously?” Thrown, Martin whips his head around with much less subtlety than before. It’s more crowded now, every available seat taken, more people milling around waiting for trains. It makes it harder to discern individual people, but he can’t see anyone who’d look remotely interested in someone like him.

“Yes,” Jon says quietly. “Martin —”

“It’s not her, is it? The blonde?” He tilts his chin towards a woman with a complicated hairdo and dangerous-looking shoes, sitting a little ways across the aisle, staring intently at them.

“What?” Jon looks where Martin gestures, staring back with equal intensity. He cocks his head, brow furrowing. “No. No, she’s just — really racist.”

“Oh.” Martin makes a face at her before he can stop himself, but it’s not like he doesn’t mean it. Her reaction probably would have clued him in even if Jon hadn’t said anything. “Okay…” He looks around again.

“Martin —”

“It’s not that guy, is it—”

“ _Martin_ ,” Jon interrupts. “I meant. Well, I meant _me._ ”

“What?”

“I— yeah?”

Martin blinks down at him, for the first time realizing, despite their linked hands, that they’ve been leaning on each other for awhile. Their faces are extremely close, looking like this. He blinks again.

“Was that…was that how Avatars flirt?”

“ _No,”_ says Jon. _“Shut up._ ”

“It’s just,” Martin says, “that was _really_ awful, if it was.”

“Well, it _wasn’t_.” Jon looks shifty, trying to sink lower, but he can’t, because Martin has put his free hand on his cheek, forcing him to look up.

“The thing is,” Martin says softly, after taking a second. Even without the Ceaseless Watcher behind it, Jon’s gaze always carries such _weight._ “I can’t… see things the way you can, Jon. So I just— just need you tell me. Because you can always see when I want to kiss you, too. You don’t even need to look too hard.”

He knows what people have told him, and maybe it would be different if Jon pushed harder, but it doesn’t feel like anything, having Jon brush against his mind. Maybe he’s not even doing it at all. All Martin feels is the same clench of his stomach and the same pounding of his heart that he always gets when looking at Jon and thinking about kissing him. So many moments. After they first met, hidden against the rows of filing cabinets, the automatic light sensors turning off and leaving them in a blissful dark. When he’d been sleeping at the Institute and Jon hadn’t been leaving, turning to each other in the early morning hours when they were both unable to sleep. Hiding from Jane Prentiss and pulling Jon into a kiss before a big heroic gesture that never actually came. Martin wanted to kiss Jon to make him forget about suspecting Martin of murder. He’d wanted to be the one to find Jon when he’d been hiding from the police and kiss him, to prove to himself that he really didn’t think Jon killed anyone either. He’d wanted to kiss him after every time Jon had gotten kidnapped. He’d wanted Jon to wake up from his coma and kiss him for waiting. He’d wanted to kiss Jon every time he read a statement for him and thought about the toll they must take on him. He’d even wanted to kiss Jon every moment he was at Peter’s side, and he’d wanted to kiss Jon when he was trapped in the Lonely, because nothing feels lonelier than wanted someone you think you can’t have.

“I don’t know if I want to kiss you here in this dingy train station, though,” Martin lies, his fingers brushing below Jon’s ear. “Being glared at by a miserable woman who probably isn’t too keen on my hand on your face, either.”

Jon looks dazed in a way he hasn’t at all while they’ve been playing this game. Perhaps it’s because of what he’s seeing on Martin’s face as well as in his head. “Oh no,” he says faintly. “She’s really not a fan of this at all.”

His lips are softer than Martin is expecting, the bitter taste of coffee clinging to the corners. He doesn’t seem to know what sort of pressure to use, going too soft and barely there and then pressing forward desperately and then pulling back in trepidation and then opening his mouth just enough to graze Martin’s bottom lip against his teeth. Just before Martin closes his eyes, he sees Jon’s are still a little open, his pupils black and human. Martin finds himself wishing that a hundred tape recorders have manifested, in their pockets, in their bags, on the floor, scattered on every inch of their bench, anything to have captured the sound Jon makes when Martin holds his head between both hands and kisses him back.

It’s probably not appropriate for a train station, but Martin doesn’t care. It’s the first time he’s felt completely without fear in a very long time.

He rests his forehead against Jon’s, eyes closed, feeling him with every other one of his senses. Jon doesn’t smell like the sea at all.

Jon’s hands are loosely holding on to the upper arms of his sweater. They clench and release like a contented cat. He sighs and says, breathy on Martin’s face, “The train.”

Martin hums in agreement. “The train.”

“No. The train. The train!” Suddenly, Jon is up, attempting to pull Martin up with him with his panicky, noodly arms.

“The train?” Martin stands. “Use other words please—“

“They switched the — the bleedin’ track, honest to fucking God—“ He’s grabbing at everything, their plastic bags of new clothes and emergency statements, a tape recorder that _had_ shown up at some point while they were sitting there, the Sports section of the newspaper, Martin’s hand.

“So, the Eye’s one weakness,” says Martin, huffing to be overheard as they weave through the crowds to get to the other side of the station. He can hear a train pulling in now. “It’s the erroneous schedules of public transportation. That’s good to know, actually.”

* * *

The smell of smoke hangs heavily in the air like a long note at the end of a sad song.

Marin enjoys the warmth of the fire, though. The trip to Daisy’s cabin had been overly long and frustrating. For the first time in awhile, he feels able to relax, just a little. In this case, that just means being allowed to take off his shoes, but it’s the small things that have come to matter. The cabin is significantly cozier than he’d been prepared for. He’d pictured a Spartan shack in the woods, the walls lined with various weaponry and taxidermied animal heads and dried bloodstains.

Instead, Jon had led them to a shabby but clean two-bedroom house on the outskirts of a quaint Scottish village, surrounded by more farmland than forests. They’d arrived in the late afternoon, the sweet, mountainous air bright on their travel-sweat skin. Daisy’s place was only a short walk from the train station, and it had felt good to move after so many hours on the trains. Martin had to hoist Jon up on his shoulders to fish out the ridiculously difficult to access hide-a-key in the rain gutters, but otherwise, everything was relatively welcoming.

Inside, they’d found a thin layer of dust, worn furniture, an abundance of tartan blankets, running cold water, and no power. Jon had assured Martin that it was infinitely better than his accommodations in America.

Both of them had an aversion to being underground. They had an obvious dislike of tunnels, and Jon had been literally buried alive for a few days. But Martin had a discomfort for basements in particular, so Jon had offered to go downstairs to find a breaker box and see about the power. Martin got a fire going in the fireplace before it got too dark. Just because Jon could know everything doesn’t mean Martin had any faith in his handyman abilities.

He used to like the smell of fire. It had been comforting and warm, keeping him company on cold, quiet nights growing up. He’d write poems by the soft orange light and pretend he was Lord Byron. Martin had spent many hours of his childhood, pretending to be in love.

But now it just reminds him of Elias pressing down hard on his psyche, the cloying scent of burning statements filling his nostrils while Elias dominated all his other senses. The smoke while he saw his mother in his mind, felt her hatred for him, felt the ghost of his father that lives just beneath the surface of his own skin. He’d felt so strong, lighting up those statements in defiance of everything the Magnus Institute ever did, everything it ever stood for. Now, the smell of burning paper just makes his stomach turn, reminding him how easily, how swiftly any strength he has can be taken away from him.

It covers the lingering scent of the sea like a fog, clinging to his hands, his clothes, the hairs on his face he hasn’t had time to shave. He gets lost in it for a few minutes, letting it crackle through him like a static shock, until Jon stumbles out of the basement, brushing cobwebs out of his hair. Despite having all the knowledge in the world, all Jon had been able to see was that Daisy was several months behind on her bills.

In the dark, however, Jon had found a mostly full bottle of Scotch and the assurance that there was no sentiment attached to it. Martin had still been unsure about it, the half-statement hit-and-run still fresh in his mind, and not feeling particularly keen on stealing from Daisy. But then Jon had said, with sadness edging into his eyes, that if he ever saw Daisy again, he’d want to buy her a drink anyway.

Now, the smoke is making his stomach roll still, but at least his head is rolling too, and if he looks at Jon instead of the fire, he smells it less. Neither of them are very big drinkers, and they definitely aren’t the kind of people who drink Scotch by itself. It doesn’t get any easier the drunker they get. If anything, their retching only gets more pronounced.

“ _Yeeeeuuuuch!_ ” Jon groans, wiping his lips angrily with the back of the hand still holding the bottles. All the cups in the kitchen are dusty and not worth the effort. “God. This is _awful_.”

Martin takes the bottle off him. He doesn’t have to go far. They’re sharing a piece of furniture that is somewhere between an armchair and a couch. They can both barely fit. Jon is entirely made up of legs, it feels, one foot braced on the coffee table, the other leg thrown across Martin’s lap like a seatbelt. He’d been sitting completely upright when he’d had his first drink. It’s like watching a glass of water spill in slow motion.

“I dunno,” says Martin, stalling before taking another sip. “I feel very manly right now.”

“You do _not_.”

“Well, I feel like Daisy right now.”

“Daisy never got drunk,” Jon says authoritatively. “She’d sip at it and brood after she caught a criminal too quickly and she didn’t have a chance to beat them up.”

“Oh,” says Martin. “Are we. Is this supposed to be sipped?”

“Blech. Ugh.”

Looking at Jon instead of the fire has the added benefit of seeing Jon glow in the firelight, his teeth shining as he grimaces against the taste. “You were saying?”

“I was saying.”

“You were saying something,” Martin says. “I’m almost sure of it.”

“Oh.” Jon flings himself back against the arm rest. It’s not very far, his knee resting on Martin’s belly. “I was saying that it’s not fair.”

Carefully, Martin holds onto Jon’s knee. It’s bony under his palm, and warmer than the fire. He takes another gulp of the Scotch, managing not to gag too hard.

“Like,” Jon continues. “ _Who_ am _I_?”

“Jon.”

“Yes, but who am _I_?”

Martin blinks. “Jon.” Then he tries, “The Archivist?”

“Yes! Exactly!” Jon grips Martin’s sweater to leverage himself up. “It’s not fair. I shouldn’t just get to _know_ everything. I haven’t earned that. I mean, who am I?”

“It’s not fair,” Martin agrees, sighing. His head is swimming and Jon smells stronger of whisky than of smoke.

“We’re _researchers_. We studied to do _research_.”

Martin opens his mouth to dispute that, but then thinks better of it.

“We research!” Jon shakes Martin’s hand holding the bottle, and it spills on them. “We _look_ for the answers. That’s what we do. Did. And we were bloody good at it.”

“Well.”

“We were _alright_ at it.”

“I — also don’t know how true that is.”

“We were not bad at it.” Jon is still holding the hand that’s holding the Scotch. He’s weaving like a snake. “And we appreciate it. The art of it. Of research. Looking for answers. All the — all the researchers and scientists and historians and — and —”

“Philosophers?”

“Ugh, not them. But it’s. It’s like, eels. Y’know eels?”

Martin squints deeply into Jon’s eyes. “I am familiar with them.”

Jon squints back. “Do you know, we still don’t know how eels mate? We don’t even know! No one knows! _Aristotle_ couldn’t even figure it out! And he tried! He couldn’t even — even — find their genitals. He looked for them and couldn’t find them! He pos-posited that they, they reproduced by scratching up against a big rock. Imagine.”

Martin considers that suggestion, and then says, “No, I shan’t.”

“Martin, I love you, but I simply need you to try harder at imagining a big rock. I—”

Then there is only the crackling sound of the fire. Jon blinks at himself, visibly backtracking over what he just said. Martin waits patiently for him over the words, keeping them company until Jon gets there again. It feels like he’s been waiting there for Jon forever.

It’s faded in his mind, like the last soft voice of an echo, but he knows he told Jon he loved him back in the Lonely. Even when all other parts of himself had become nothing but mist, that had been the last bit that had lingered. Martin has always defined himself by love. Love, and the lack of it. He’s loved so many times in his life, it’s almost become his natural state of being, but he’s never really felt it back. It’s what made him so perfect for what plans Peter Lukas had for him. He’d love people, and he’d convinced himself he didn’t need love back. That it was fine. That the love he felt for others belonged to him, and it didn’t matter how they felt. He’d carried it, he nurtured it, like a dear pet. His love was as personal to him as his happiness or his bitterness or his inspiration or his rage. It didn’t have anything to do with anyone else, not really. It’s how he managed to work at the Magnus Institute for so long. His love has always been his to enjoy.

But oh, it feels so nice to be given some back. He doesn’t know what it means to be loved by someone like Jon, except that he’s completely sure there is only to be more terror and horrors in his future. If there’s any chance of detangling Jon from his fate, Martin knows the only way to do that lies at the end of a long road paved with fear. Fears.

And despite all that, Jon still has it in him to love. To be loved, which, to Martin, is infinitely scarier.

Jon knows everything. Martin doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know what they’re going to do about Elias or the Eye or the various apocalypses or the people trying to kill them or even what they’re going to eat for breakfast tomorrow. But he knows, now, that Jon loves him. It’s the most powerful thing Martin has ever known.

“I—” Jon says again. He’s finally caught up with his words. He blinks slowly at Martin. “What. What are you thinking?”

Martin answers honestly. “I’m thinking of writing another poem about you.”

“Okay.” Jon somehow manages to flush harder than before, even with the liquor and the warmth of the fire. But the worry leaves his face like a page turning, and somehow the grimace at his poetry makes Martin love him even more, because Martin has problems. “Calm down. This is very serious, what I’m saying.”

“Of course,” says Martin, touching Jon’s cheek to see if he’s as hot as he looks. “I will imagine the big rock.”

“ _Thank_ you.” Jon forges ahead, even as he leans into Martin’s hand, fighting to get back on whatever track he’d been on. “Hundreds of — _thousands_ of years, and we have not figured out how eels mate with each other. Scientists! Martin! They’ve tried! There have been scientists who spend their whole careers trying to figure out how eels…”

“Shag,” Martin helps.

“Yes, and they haven’t figured it out. Didn’t figure it out. Some of them _died_ , Martin.” Jon looks haunted by the idea. He takes another drink of the Scotch, in a move that would have looked like Humphrey Bogart if Martin hadn’t still been holding the bottle too, spilling it all over them both again. “ _Bleeeeegh ugh why did I do that_. Ugh. Some of them _died_ , Martin, and they didn’t know how eels mated. But _me?_ I could just _know_ how eels mate. Y’know? Martin, I could just _know_ how eels, eels shag. It’s not fair.”

It could be said that there’s quite a lot about their lives, especially recently, that isn’t fair. The responsibilities they now have, that they never asked for. This is a specific injustice Martin hadn’t considered. “Huh.”

“Who am I? It’s not my _place_ to know how eels shag. I haven’t _earned_ that knowledge. It isn’t right. Those poor dead eel scientists.”

Martin murmurs, mulling it over. It surely isn’t fair to everyone looking for answers to the world’s mysteries, but maybe some people would be grateful. Did the Eye even work like that? Or could it only know what humans know — that someone living somewhere must know. The Eye is basically just a great big eavesdropper, isn’t it? Could Jon know the Meaning of Life? The location of the Ark of the Covenant? Who Jack the Ripper was?

Suddenly, Jon hooks his leg over the side of the couch, pulling himself closer, now almost fully on Martin’s lap. “You know, Martin,” he says seriously, “I’m quite like an eel.”

“Erk,” says Martin intelligently, still adjusting to the sudden weight of Jon on him, this close. “Slippery?”

“No.” For lack of a better place to put it, his hand rests on Martin’s head. It’s awkward at first, until he cards his fingers through Martin’s hair. “I don’t really — really know how I — how I date. I guess.”

Martin looks at him for a long moment. “Oh my god,” he says finally. “This whole time I thought you were saying _mate._ ”

“I _was._ But. Well, obviously, Martin, it stands to reason that if we don’t even know what an eel’s genitals look like, then we must know very little about their courting rituals as well.”

Martin tries his best to hold that up to reason, but finds he can barely lift it. “You’re right.”

“I know what it _involves_ , traditionally. Dating. Flowers, y’know. Arguing over where we should go to dinner. Going on holiday. Doing things together. Talking about our day. _Every_ day. I just never really… and I don’t really know what this looks like, for me. To do this. With someone. The few times I’ve tried have always been disastrous, and that was before I carried baggage bigger than my _Eye_.”

“You have lovely eyes, though.”

“Not _those_ eyes,” Jon insists, but he looks pleased. “I just. Never really do this with people. There’s a lot of it I don’t…. that I’m just not a fan of.”

“Oh.” Martin kind of already knew that. Because Jon never gossiped himself, it meant a lot of the gossip had been about him. The talk around the Institute had run the gamut of _former seminary student still taking a vow of chastity_ to _secret male dominatrix_. The truth is always tame compared to speculation. “That’s alright.”

“I mean, I’m not entirely like an eel,” Jon says, and then adds, with equal parts confidence and pride. “ _I_ know where _my_ genitals are.”

Martin smiles. He can’t help it. “Then you’re not really like an eel at all. It’s alright if you haven't dated much.”

“Well, eels might not date much either. As far as we know. Therefore, I am exactly like an eel.”

“In that case, I’m like an eel, too.” Martin pries the bottle out of Jon’s hand and puts it on the ground. He’s embarrassed to see they’ve barely made a dent in it, considering how drunk they both feel. He’s equally embarrassed to see a tape recorder on the floor, capturing all of this. He sticks his tongue out at it but ignores it for now, and puts both arms around Jon, fully supporting him. “We’re sort of on holiday now.”

Jon snorts. “Yes. To _Scotland._ ”

“And I’m not much of a picky eater,” Martin adds, “so I doubt we’ll ever argue about that.”

“I also might, um.” Jon looks bashful. “Might not have to eat. Food. Anymore. Unless I feel like it. So.”

“Well…. I’m allergic to flowers.”

“But you write _poetry._ That’s devastating.”

“My flowers are. Allegorical. And we can do things together that we like to do, so that should be fine. Beating up monsters, organizing files chronologically.” Martin grins at Jon’s scowl. “What else d’you like to do?”

Jon shrugs. He looks at the fire. He has the same gaze he did in the train station, trying to _see_ something, but it slides around his eyes like oil. Martin can’t tell if it’s the alcohol or the self-assessment. “I like this, I guess,” he says after a moment. “What we’re doing right now.”

“Getting pissed.”

“ _No._ I mean — this.” He shakes the arms that are currently around Martin’s shoulders, tugging at his hair.

“Ah,” says Martin wisely. “Cuddling.”

“ _No_ ,“ says Jon. “ _Shut up._ ”

“This is a cuddle,” Martin breaks it to him as gently as he can. “I’m very sorry to be the one to tell you.”

“I do _not_ cuddle,” Jon says, cat-like. “I just like to hold you close in my arms for a prolonged amount of time because I have great affection for you.”

“Uh huh.” Martin’s whole chest is expanding like a flower in the sun. He is absolutely writing another poem, as soon as he can find a pen and some sobriety. “Anything else?”

Jon thinks about it, taking the question very seriously. The shadows of the fire dance around the long line of his neck, dotted with soft scars like constellations, and Martin can’t honestly tell if it makes Jon look vulnerable or if that’s just how he himself is feeling, looking at him. “I don’t know,” Jon says finally.

So public transportation and Jon’s feelings — two things the Beholding can’t completely know. Martin’s going to start making a list, just to be safe.

“Okay,” says Martin, and then because he is drunk, and because, it seems, he can, he kisses the corner of Jon’s mouth. He’s soft but he lingers with it, Jon’s hand in his hair pressing him closer, feeling both exhausted from their journey and awake with the awareness of Jon. Jon and his love. “How about we do some prolonged affectionate holding whilst lying down for a while?”

“Hmm?”

Martin would really like to go wash up before going to sleep, and try to get the smell of smoke out of his skin, but he’s starting to suspect that’s unlikely to happen. But he thinks if he holds Jon close enough, it might just not matter. “Bed? I have never been more excited to sleep without my shoes on.”

“Oh. Alright.” Jon smiles. “That’s a good idea.”

“Great,” says Martin.

And then he says, “Jon?”

“Yes, Martin?”

“To do that, we have to actually stand up.”

“I have stood up.”

Martin nods, and then just keeps going and buries his face in Jon’s neck. Here, there’s no fire smoke at all. Just Jon and his skin, and the whisky that didn’t make it to his mouth, and the last trace of new sweater smell, and his love, filling every one of his senses. “Okay. Good job.” So. Public transportation, Jon’s feelings, and Jon’s alcohol tolerance. That’s three things, then.

* * *

Martin wakes up too early, the bedroom a dusky gray as the morning sun slides through the window. He’s momentarily disoriented, head pounding, overly hot, and unsure of where he is at all. Every part of his body is either staticky with sleep or filled with aches. Then he remembers — Scotland, a village, a house, a bottle of whisky. Jon, whose chest his face is pressed again. Jon, who for some reason has wrapped himself around Martin’s head like he’s shielding him from a bomb blast.

Jon’s still out cold, drooling slightly into Martin’s hair, and Martin feels short of breath, both with fondness and the need for fresh air. It takes several slow movements for him to Indiana Jones himself with a pillow, but eventually he’s tottering unevenly beside the bed, cooling in the drafty room, and Jon is murmuring down into the blankets.

It’s so, so tempting to just crawl back in after him, but Martin needs water desperately, and tea, and to brush his teeth. He needs to start the arduous process of feeling like a human being again, if someone in this house is going to.

So he brushes his teeth, and drinks a glass of water, and then he goes and sits in the chair by the bed, watching Jon sleep. It might be creepy, but Jon is absolutely the very last person who can call him out for that, so it’s fine. He watches the shadows thin over Jon’s sleeping face until the room finally accepts that it’s day again, his dark eyelashes long and soft against his long and soft face, the strand of hair curling against his unpillowed ear, the gap in his dry lips, showing just the faintest hint of teeth. It’s like the weeks Martin spent at Jon’s bedside while he’d been in the coma, except in every way that it’s not.

He wonders if Elias is able to see them somehow. See what they’re doing, where they’re hiding. Just in case he can, Martin sits in that chair and lets himself feel every ounce of love he has for Jon. He soaks in it like its the sun at the end of a long, grueling winter. He knows sometimes Jon would feel the emotions of the people while reading their statements, and those emotions were always only pain and anger and so much fear. He hopes it works that way for Elias too, if the emotion is strong enough. Martin hopes his love for Jon covers Elias like an oil spill, and that he chokes on it.

Then he goes to make tea.

The kitchen is bare of variety, but he finds a few pathetic boxes of bagged tea in the back of a cupboard. The stove isn’t working, so he has to get the fire going again to heat some water. The smell of smoke isn’t so bothersome now, in the light of day. The faded living room feels so unlike that dark office at the Institute, he doesn’t know how he could ever compare the two. Now, the smell of smoke makes him think of last night only, of Jon half-sprawled in his lap and the stringent taste of liquor on his tongue, and his stomach twists at both memories for different reasons.

He rinses clean a mug that unfortunately reads, _I Like Big Busts and I Cannot Lie_ with a cartoon of some handcuffs and a cop car. He makes himself a strong cup of tea and looks out the window. It’s a beautiful landscape of rolling greens and rising purples, pale sunlight streaking through towering steel clouds threatening an early morning shower. He drinks his tea, stoically repressing his hangover, and asks himself how he feels.

_I’m alone_ , he tests, pressing against the boundaries of himself. Outside the window he sees nothing, not even a bird, and yes, technically, he is alone right now. There’s no one else here with him, in this moment.

_I’m lonely_ , he thinks instead, and waits, and finds it just doesn’t carry the same truth it has for the last few months. He knows it’s not that easy to rid oneself of melancholy that quickly. He knows it’s not really gone. But right now, this second, he’s alone, but he isn't lonely. Jon’s just in the other room.

He has a lot to think about, over his morning cup of tea — how to get Jon statements before he starts feeling too ill, what to do about Elias and everyone else trying to kill or manipulate them, where to find the big, greasy, hangover breakfast he deserves right now. Instead, he looks out the window and starts composing the poem he’d promised to write for Jon last night.

Eventually, much later than he would have expected, Jon wakes up. The house is old and creaks to life with every movement, announcing his arrival to the living room. Martin is still half lost at the window, trying to recall a thought he’d had last night about Jon’s scars, when Jon comes up behind him, wrapping his arms around Martin’s middle, and pressing his face into the nape of his neck.

Even though Jon is smaller, Martin rocks forward a little with the sudden weight on his back. He almost suspects Jon has gone back to sleep. “Good morning,” he says, keeping his voice low just in case. “Sleep alright?”

“Bmrph,” Jon says.

Martin has the advantage of caffeine, but he understands the sentiment. “How are you feeling?”

“Grksm,” says Jon intelligently.

Martin hums. So it seems aligning to the Eye doesn’t prevent hangovers. It’s unlikely they could use that against Elias, but he files it away anyway. Then he asks, “Do you know of anywhere in town that makes a good breakfast?”

Jon groans, rubbing his face into Martin’s sweater, trying to burrow. “Do not ask me to know things,” he says, his voice rough with sleep. “I don’t know anything right now. I know nothing. Christ.”

“Fair enough.”

They stay at the window, Martin sipping his tea, Jon potentially drooling on him again. Martin tries to think of a way to describe a heavy weight on one’s back he doesn’t mind, a weight he loves, a weight he’ll happily carry, a weight that he can cling back to, but he’s having trouble clarifying the metaphor.

“Hey, Jon?” He says it softly just in case Jon is asleep.

Jon shifts, mumbling incoherently, then says, “Yes, Martin?”

“How do eels mate?”

There’s a long, dangerous pause behind him.

“How dare you,” Jon says viciously, tightening his hug and pressing his lips gently into Martin’s neck. “Have you no respect for the scientific method?”

“Not last I checked,” Martin says, wrapping his free hand around Jon’s arm. In a moment, he’s going to turn around and kiss Jon, who probably hasn’t even had the sense to brush his teeth yet. It won’t matter. Martin will kiss him and enjoy it. Any moment now, Martin gets to turn around and kiss Jon, and the anticipation of doing so makes Martin feel more awake and less alone than he’s ever felt in his life.

“Is there any more of that Earl Grey left?” Jon asks.

The kitchen is on the other side of the house. He knows for a fact Jon didn’t bother to explore it yesterday. “I thought it was too early for knowing things,” Martin accuses. “But you’ll use it to see what tea we’ve got?”

But Jon just sighs deeply into Martin’s hair, his warm breath brushing behind Martin’s ear. “No,” he says. “I can just always smell it on you.”


End file.
